[Kirby64]

Are we reading the same list?

The mini cooper EV is a joke of a car. 114 miles is ridiculous for $30k. Likewise, the 'base' Nissan Leaf is 150mi for $30k isn't much better.

The crossover/small-SUV segment is a little more competitive, but still you're comparing vehicles with quite dissimilar (n.b., worse) specs for lower prices.

If all you care about is a car that is electric that can be driven, then sure, there's cheaper cars. That doesn't mean they're better or reasonable for most consumers.

[hedora]

The goal is specifically “affordable” cars. Even the 114 mile cooper is going to be fine for commutes. That makes it a perfect second car for two driver households.

I’ve never driven one, but if it’s anything like my i3, it’s probably by far the sportiest thing on that list. Apparently it’s “a hoot to drive”, but the suspension is a bit stiff:

https://www.topgear.com/car-reviews/mini/cooper-electric

$30K for a quirky sporty commuter car seems completely reasonable to me.

(Also, the range is rated significantly higher in Europe for some reason. It probably outperforms EPA in the real world.)

[Kirby64]

An “affordable” car that isn’t useful is worthless. In general, people do not want cars that can only drive 114mi in ideal conditions. It reduces overall battery lifespan (since you put more cycles on it), and also can’t be used for anything except around the town. I would say the same thing about the i3 unless you’re talking about the gas engine generator one.

Also, I looked up mini’s current offerings in the US. They don’t sell that car. The cheapest car they sell is the “Countryman SE ALL4” which starts at 47k and gets a meager 212mi of range.

[hedora]

Our i3 is good enough for 95% of our trips, and we rarely get it below 20% (the computer reports 100% when the cells hit 90%). There have been zero times when we needed the other car at the same time as the i3, and the i3 couldn’t handle either trip.

Also, battery wear out on them is basically unheard of. Even if it were a thing, they have an extremely long transferable battery warranty (try finding an estimated dealer price for a swap). If you do somehow kill the battery, third party replacement ones can have higher range.

I honestly don’t know why you think 113 miles is worthless for a secondary car. Wyoming has the highest number of miles driven per year in the US at 24K. That’s 65 miles a day, so the 113 mile car will be more than adequate for most trips for the average Wyoming driver, assuming they drive daily.

The US average is 14K miles.

[Kirby64]

114mi of range isn’t actually 114mi. That’s my problem. If you treat the battery properly, you’d not use the bottom or top 10% (better would be not using bottom/top 20%, but that’d be impractical at that range), and then you need to add battery degradation of 10% or so. That means your 114mi range is more like 82 miles. Then, because it’s epa range, that means the actual range on the highway is going to be worse. So you’re closing to 60 miles of range.

Sure that’s more than the “average” commute even in high usage areas, but people don’t generally have super consistent average commutes. You’ll have a shorter average commute and then a longer drive with errands and such.

Also, having a car that needs to be essentially fully charged every day means you have to always, always remember to plug it in. Not as convenient as a car you need to charge every couple days.